In 1972, members of CREEP were caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel. Recognizing that the political fallout of a cover up would be worse than the break in itself, Nixon agreed to cooperate with legal authorities in the prosecution of the burglars. But what if Nixon had succumbed to paranoia and decided to cover up his administration's involvement in the break in?
 
It'd come out and lead to enough drama that we'd see Humphrey beating Connally in 1976 instead of OTL's outcome.

Which, on one hand, might allow for a rather less bad 1980-82 recession(let's face it, Connally's economic policies were terrible), and quite possibly no botched hostage rescue attempt in Iran.....but on the other hand, that'd also mean no President Ferraro or quite possibly the '84 electoral landslide for that matter; remember, President Jackson had died in '83 and VP Ferraro got a real sympathy boost, much like LBJ had in '64, and perhaps bigger at that.....not to mention the steadily recovering economy and her stellar handling of the South Asian Missile Crisis in October '84, amongst other things.

So yeah, while Connally arguably was a pretty damned crappy President, at least we got some things out of that in the long run that were arguably quite positive for our country.

Meanwhile, OTOH, Nixon giving in to paranoia, while it might have really helped the Dems in '76, might not necessarily have lead to all the positive outcomes that we might hope for later on.
 
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Dems winning in 1960 might give the old goldwater-style conservatives another chance. Imagine 4 or 8 years of Goldwater or Reagan's economic policies.

You think Connally's decision to insist on hard money policies while acting faux-populist by pointing ot poeple's Citizen Dividend or as the euros call them "basic income" checks gave us a bad recession in the early 80s imagine Goldwaterite/Reagganite economic policy. X_X
 
Which, on one hand, might allow for a rather less bad 1980-82 recession(let's face it, Connally's economic policies were terrible), and quite possibly no botched hostage rescue attempt in Iran.....but on the other hand, that'd also mean no President Ferraro or quite possibly the '84 electoral landslide for that matter; remember, President Jackson had died in '83 and VP Ferraro got a real sympathy boost, much like LBJ had in '64, and perhaps bigger at that.....not to mention the steadily recovering economy and her stellar handling of the South Asian Missile Crisis in October '84, amongst other things.

So yeah, while Connally arguably was a pretty damned crappy President, at least we got some things out of that in the long run that were arguably quite positive for our country.

Meanwhile, OTOH, Nixon giving in to paranoia, while it might have really helped the Dems in '76, might not necessarily have lead to all the positive outcomes that we might hope for later on.

Then there's always the possibility that Nixon gets caught and is impeached. I'm surprised that didn't happen in OTL given how corrupt he was. If Nixon leaves office before 1977, then Vice-President Ford becomes President and he receives the blame for the terrible economy and the Fall of Saigon - not Nixon.
 
Dems winning in 1960 might give the old goldwater-style conservatives another chance.

Erm.....but JFK won in '60, though. (which reminds me: wonder what might have happened if the assassination attempt on President Ferraro on Feb. 27, '88 had succeeded?)

Imagine 4 or 8 years of Goldwater or Reagan's economic policies.

No disagreement there.

You think Connally's decision to insist on hard money policies while acting faux-populist by pointing ot poeple's Citizen Dividend or as the euros call them "basic income" checks gave us a bad recession in the early 80s imagine Goldwaterite/Reagganite economic policy. X_X

As poorly thought out as the "Citizen's Dividend"(a partly-privatized thing that was intended-although failed to-replace Social Security, let's not forget!) truly was, it didn't really have anything to do with the recession itself, by and large: it actually was his insistence on massive tax breaks for the wealthy that really helped exacerbate it, more than anything else. The Washington Post had a really good story on this back in 1995.

Then there's always the possibility that Nixon gets caught and is impeached. I'm surprised that didn't happen in OTL given how corrupt he was. If Nixon leaves office before 1977, then Vice-President Ford becomes President and he receives the blame for the terrible economy and the Fall of Saigon - not Nixon.

Also, I did want to mention the possibility that if the Republicans were able to sweep enough of Nixon's foibles under the rug ITTL, they might have a real shot at winning a pretty decent margin in '84 depending on the circumstances(whereas IOTL, we didn't begin to learn the whole story behind the full extent of the Nixon administration's corruption until the spring and summer of 1979, which turned out to be horrible timing for the GOP-hell, Connally actually came damn close to losing his home state of Texas, even!).....maybe even after just one term in '80 if the Democrat who succeeds him or Ford turned out to have a really bad time(as what basically happened in a certain long-running collab TL elsewhere on the 'Net), though that might be a real stretch: heck, let's not forget that Jack Kemp mainly only won his own term in '88 because Mike Dukakis turned out to be a pretty crappy candidate.
 
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Erm.....but JFK won in '60, though.



No disagreement there.



As poorly thought out as the "Citizen's Dividend"(a partly-privatized thing that was intended-although failed to-replace Social Security, let's not forget!) was, it didn't really have anything to do with the recession itself, by and large: it actually was his insistence on massive tax breaks for the wealthy that really helped exacerbate it, more than anything else. The Washington Post had a really good story on this back in 1995.



Also, I did want to mention the possibility that if the Republicans were able to sweep enough of Nixon's foibles under the rug ITTL, they might have a real shot at winning a pretty decent margin in '84 depending on the circumstances(whereas IOTL, we didn't begin to learn the whole story behind the full extent of the Nixon administration's corruption until the spring and summer of 1979, which turned out to be horrible timing for the GOP-hell, Connally actually came damn close to losing his home state of Texas, even!).....maybe even after just one term in '80 if the Democrat who succeeds him or Ford turned out to have a really bad time(as what basically happened in a certain long-running collab TL elsewhere on the 'Net), though that might be a real stretch: heck, let's not forget that Jack Kemp mainly only won his own term in '88 because Mike Dukakis turned out to be a pretty crappy candidate.

One wonders why Ferraro didn't run again in 1988, when she would've won.

Kemp turned out to be an OK President, although the recession in his second term hit some parts of the country pretty hard. America would be a very different place today without his "supply-side" economics.
 
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